Once, We Were Still Black by Tswarelo Mothobe

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Once,

Somewhere in the loss of true memory

Our black was beautiful

You must remember US,

When being black was the most vivid of dreams

Raindrops wetting to life those landscapes within

An idea brightest in the blackest of times

Because it was then, that point of creation

And then light

Now being black is a nightmare

A lonesome memory trapped in third world politics

Education systems that blind our ability to dream

Arrested development as we slave in modern day plantations

Structured to seem to mind as our salvation

A nightmare from which if we sleep

We may never awake

Black was a feeling once

A mood dressed in the most moving of music

When drums would sound the pulse pace of warriors

Mbiras the guidance of those alive within us

When the most eloquent of tongues exhaled words to life

A young man’s guitar

Would sound to the Heartbeat of the most virtuous sister

As they moved within the rhythm of love

A most sensual dance

A most intimate of refrains

Skins glistening with wetness

Black was passion being born

Now black men are dogs

And black women are bitches

And love is this pain from which many will never heal

Sore the most in the thought of betrayed thighs

Family has since become this load of difficulties

And as such

Building as one people has become ponder for the most backward of minds

But black was an attitude once

A consciousness

The very essence of life

The meaning of freedom

Before history said to us, birds are now freer

Black was the original man

Before religions

And systems

And capitalisms

And the differences between you and I

Now black is an option

An option of which hair to wear

Which skin tone to smear on?

Which accent to speak in?

Depending on which light skin I’m pleasing

Black has become an option of which ever religion

Hindu, Jewish, Islam, Christian

Whichever one just as long as it is not African

An option between all other identities

All other realities except our own

Black has become all other people

Except YOU!!!!